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Waitress
She works in a diner called the Desert Rose which sits along the northwestern edge of Colorado, near the Utah border. It’s a small and undistinguished affair, worn and weathered but always brightly lit and burning like a little beacon in that high American wasteland. Triangles of cherry pie sit bleeding in the pie case, and strips of honey-yellow flypaper spiral down from the low stucco ceiling.
She was born and raised in a tiny mountain town one-hundred miles southeast. She grew up uncommonly good-looking, self-reliant, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes with all the other small-town girls and boys. She began working when she was in the eleventh grade, and she’s not stopped working since. Waiting tables is what she’s done for most of her life. She graduated high school but never went to college. After school, she drifted awhile, developed a taste for books, black coffee, practical knowledge.
By age thirty-five, she’d already buried two husbands, both miners, one killed in a car crash, the other dead by disease. She has two teenage children who love her. Now, no longer young but not yet old, she is beautiful still, and single. She plays jazz records and reads in her rented apartment that’s too small for three.
There have been many other jobs — night auditor, bank teller, housecleaner — but waitressing is the one she always comes back to. There are no special skills in her repertoire, no trade. She’s well-read, her mind of a naturally speculative cast, and she quotes to herself from old poets (… full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air).
At twilight, invariably, there’s a fleeting sense of sadness that comes over her.
Fifty feet behind the Desert Rose, a cluster of cottonwoods grows along the banks of a sea-green river. They are ancient and massive trees. Wind moves sluggishly through their dusty boughs, and moonlike globes of cotton orbit the bodies of the trees and fall soundlessly into the swift molecular water. Sparse grass grows along the desert floor, the desert stretching off into an intricate horizon. At the end of her shift, she likes to stand at the back porch of the café and listen to the wind sifting softly through the grass. Certain times of the year there are blue-and-purple flowers that grow among the river stalks: she thinks she can smell their sweetness on the desert air. The bone-colored moon rises meanwhile in the east and fills a small quadrant of the sky, suffusing the clouds with its yellow and sulfurous light.
Published in Literature
Nice. What’s her signature cocktail?
Triangles of cherry pie sit bleeding in the pie case
Way too many wonderful images to pick just one, but the one above jumped out at me. Such a wistful and sad story. So many beautiful, smart, and/or talented people out there who never get discovered by the world. Some never want to be, but I get the feeling the waitress might have hoped for more.
Or maybe her contribution is showing two teenagers the honor in living an honest life of manual labor.
I’m sure every mother would feel that way. But then there was this sentence: At twilight, invariably, there’s a fleeting sense of sadness that comes over her.
And the bleak description of her surroundings, the mention that she has no skills and no trade, but is beautiful and has a fine mind. All these things speak of a wistfulness for the path not taken. To me, anyway.
The excellent piece does evoke a sadness and wistfulness that cuts through to the readers heart.
she quotes to herself from old poets (… full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air).
…
Certain times of the year there are blue-and-purple flowers that grow among the river stalks: she thinks she can smell their sweetness on the desert air.
I don’t know why those two clips stood out to me. But I like them.
On the road to nowhere, one small oasis, a small pool of light that sits below the thousands of stars that can be seen through the windshield. One woman who stands at both the edge and in the middle of the big nowhere.
Beautiful! with just a hint of melancholy in her reflection.
Why wasteland?
I loved the last paragraph. Wish I could be there now. Thanks.
Her signature cocktail? Have you heard the story of the Hot-Rod Lincoln?
Thank you.
It’s a good question. I had in mind that barren country where the old man used to mine uranium. Something about it, quite apart from the mining, always, when I was a child, felt wasteland-like to me.
That’s beautiful.
I think that too.
Thank you.
This: She grew up uncommonly good-looking, self-reliant, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes with all the other small-town girls and boys. She began working when she was in the eleventh grade, and she’s not stopped working since.
And this: After school, she drifted awhile, developed a taste for books, black coffee, practical knowledge.
Dude, some of the best writing that I’ve ever seen around these here parts.
Ricochet post of the week!
@rayharvey,
I think I speak for most of Ricochet when I say we really enjoy these little vignettes of (un)common men and women of the Southwest that you paint. Likely you do it mostly for yourself, but your sharing is our gain.
Keep it up.
Very nice
I’d like to meet her.
@rayharvey
This is really top notch stuff. When are you going to put all your descriptive character pieces together into a short story – or better yet, a novel? You really have a gift for descriptive writing. Or maybe it’s just that you work at it really, really hard. In either case, the results are superlative! Keep ’em comin’!
Very nice piece of work Ray. Just what I needed to get do a mental getaway for few moments. Thanks.
Thank you, Pilli!
Another wonderfully evocative and touching piece. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much!